Marijuana Blog

Hawaii’s House Committee on Agriculture, and the state’s House Judiciary Committee, have both voted unanimously in favor of Senate Bill 2175, a proposal to establish a two-year research program to study the effectiveness of using hemp for remediation and biofuel. The measure has already passed the Senate unanimously.

If approved into law, Senate Bill 2175 would “authorize the dean of the college of tropical agriculture and human resources at the University of Hawaii to establish a two-year industrial hemp remediation and biofuel research program.” The dean would be permitted to “submit a final report to the legislature prior to the convening of the regular session of 2016.”

Remediation (also referred to as phytoremediation) is the environmentally-friendly science of using plants to remove toxins (such as metals, pesticides and crude oils) from the soil.

The proposal now heads to the full House, which is expected to give it approval soon. It will then go to the governor.

Parents of Utah children with severe epilepsy are cheering a new state law that allows them to obtain a marijuana extract they say helps with seizures, but getting it involves navigating a thorny set of state and federal laws.

Utah's Republican Gov. Gary Herbert has already approved the law and held a signing ceremony for about 50 parents and children at the state Capitol on Tuesday afternoon.

The new law doesn't allow medical marijuana production in Utah but allows families meeting certain restrictions to obtain the extract from other states.

Similar legislation is pending in at least one other state, and Utah advocates hope more will follow.

The marijuana extract, which some believe helps with a severe form of epilepsy, is produced in nearby Colorado and is designed not to produce a high.

But Colorado experts say restrictions passed in that state to appease the federal government make it a murky process for Utah families to actually get marijuana-derived products, particularly as all state medical marijuana laws are illegal under federal law.

Utah Rep. Gage Froerer, a Republican from Huntsville who sponsored the new state law, said families are willing to take that risk to treat their children with the oil.

"They know very well that this may not protect them from the DEA if the federal prosecutors stepped in," Froerer told his colleagues earlier this month.

To gain support in conservative Utah, the push for the legislation focused on helping children suffering from a severe form of epilepsy and the law itself is tempered with restrictions.

The law takes effect on July 1 and expires in 2016. It's restricted to those with severe epilepsy for whom the regular treatments are not effective, and requires a neurologist's consent to obtain and use the extract.

The extract comes from a strain of marijuana called Charlotte's Web, named after the first child treated with it. The plant is low in THC, the hallucinogenic chemical in marijuana, and high in CBD, a chemical that may fight seizures.

Doctors and others have warned that there's no proof yet that the extract is effective at treating epilepsy or even safe, but for parents like Jennifer May of Pleasant Grove, the hope that he oil will give their kids a better quality of life is worth pursuing.

"It helps more than our kids. It will hopefully help other states," said May, whose 12-year-old son can suffer hundreds of seizures a day. "It will hopefully push things a little more on a federal level if they see that even the most conservative states want something done."

There are some people who claim that they are allergic to cannabis and when they say this in a group, they can sometimes be laughed at. And while it may seem like a strange idea to be allergic to something so good for you, it's absolutely possible to have a bad reaction to this plant. Considering that cannabis is a flower, there are people who have (and can develop) allergies to consuming cannabis. While unfortunate, it is possible. Even after years of prolonged use and contact with marijuana, a person can suddenly develop negative reactions to the plant, causing them to have to rethink their methods of ingesting the miracle plant.

Cannabis, as we are all aware of, is a plant that produces flowers. Not only do the plants produce pollen, which many people are allergic to, they contain other substances that cause negative reactions in some user's bodies. Thankfully, this reaction is not caused by the THC or CBD itself, but rather the material in the plant. If someone is having issues with cannabis, chances are that they have a ot of other plant allergies as well. Makes sense, right? The cannabis plant, like all other plants, releases allergens which gather in parts of the body (such as the nose), causing a huge release of white blood cells to attack the allergens. This causes the sniffly, sneezing reaction that one experiences with an allergic reaction to a plant.

If you do experience symptoms of a cannabis reaction, don't panic. The symptoms of this phenomenon are very rare and only effect a few people. Ranging from sniffling and sneezing to dermatitis (a red rash that afflicts the skin where the plant touched), cannabis allergies can usually just be treated with over the counter products (although if you notice swelling in your face and neck, you should immediately seek medical help). And as said above, there has never been proof showing that the reaction was to any of the beneficial substances in cannabis, but rather to parts of the plant itself. When given extracts, the allergic symptoms seemed to decrease.